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American couples caught at Tel Aviv airport trying to smuggle hundreds of pounds of Fruit Roll-Ups into Israel
(JTA) — At least two American couples have been caught by Israeli customs for attempting to smuggle a total of more than 650 pounds of Fruit Roll-Ups into Israel, as the country experiences a dire shortage of the snack due to a TikTok craze.
A video posted on Tuesday by Mako, an Israeli news website, appears to show a customs official at Ben Gurion International Airport sifting through at least three open suitcases each filled with hundreds of the colorful, sugary treats. An American-accented voice off screen, in a mix of Hebrew and English, explains that he brought the snacks across the ocean for his family in Israel. When the customs official asks if the man packed clothes for himself, he responds that he has clothes in Israel.
Why did he fill two checked bags with Fruit Roll-Ups? “It has something to do with ice cream,” the man’s voice says.
The man was almost certainly referring to a viral TikTok trend, ongoing since at least March, in which users of the video social network wrap the sweet, sticky roll-up around a small scoop of ice cream, which then freezes over and becomes hard and crunchy.
“We’ve also fallen into this trend,” says an Israeli in one TikTok video from late March, as he places a box of Fruit Roll-Ups on the counter. “My whole TikTok is exploding with Fruit Roll-Ups and ice cream.”
Israelis routinely ask travelers from the United States to bring back goods that either cost more in Israel (such as electronic devices) or are hard to find on Israeli shelves (Entenmann’s Donuts, for example). But in attempting to import Fruit Roll-Ups to Israel, the American couples were tapping into a real market shortage.
Around the country, supermarkets, convenience stores and online retailers have reportedly sold out of Fruit Roll-Ups, driving up the cost of the snack. According to Israeli press reports, enterprising merchants are selling individually wrapped Fruit Roll-Ups for prices exceeding $5 or $6 each. By comparison, a box of 10 Fruit Roll-Ups in the United States typically costs less than $3.
One article in the Israeli daily Israel Hayom jokingly compared those rising costs to the value of a mortgage in Israel’s infamously expensive housing market.
“We bought them for the price of a diamond,” one parent said, according to the article. “I said I would find out how many I could get in exchange for my kidney.”
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Israel’s Netanyahu Hopes to ‘Taper’ Israel Off US Military Aid in Next Decade
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview published on Friday that he hopes to “taper off” Israeli dependence on US military aid in the next decade.
Netanyahu has said Israel should not be reliant on foreign military aid but has stopped short of declaring a firm timeline for when Israel would be fully independent from Washington.
“I want to taper off the military within the next 10 years,” Netanyahu told The Economist. Asked if that meant a tapering “down to zero,” he said: “Yes.”
Netanyahu said he told President Donald Trump during a recent visit that Israel “very deeply” appreciates “the military aid that America has given us over the years, but here too we’ve come of age and we’ve developed incredible capacities.”
In December, Netanyahu said Israel would spend 350 billion shekels ($110 billion) on developing an independent arms industry to reduce dependency on other countries.
In 2016, the US and Israeli governments signed a memorandum of understanding for the 10 years through September 2028 that provides $38 billion in military aid, $33 billion in grants to buy military equipment and $5 billion for missile defense systems.
Israeli defense exports rose 13 percent last year, with major contracts signed for Israeli defense technology including its advanced multi-layered aerial defense systems.
US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Israel supporter and close ally of Trump, said on X that “we need not wait ten years” to begin scaling back military aid to Israel.
“The billions in taxpayer dollars that would be saved by expediting the termination of military aid to Israel will and should be plowed back into the US military,” Graham said. “I will be presenting a proposal to Israel and the Trump administration to dramatically expedite the timetable.”
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In Rare Messages from Iran, Protesters ask West for Help, Speak of ‘Very High’ Death Toll
Protests in Tehran. Photo: Iran Photo from social media used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law, via i24 News
i24 News – Speaking to Western media from beyond the nationwide internet blackout imposed by the Islamic regime, Iranian protesters said they needed support amid a brutal crackdown.
“We’re standing up for a revolution, but we need help. Snipers have been stationed behind the Tajrish Arg area [a neighborhood in Tehran],” said a protester in Tehran speaking to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity. He added that “We saw hundreds of bodies.”
Another activist in Tehran spoke of witnessing security forces firing live ammunition at protesters resulting in a “very high” number killed.
On Friday, TIME magazine cited a Tehran doctor speaking on condition of anonymity that just six hospitals in the capital recorded at least 217 killed protesters, “most by live ammunition.”
Speaking to Reuters on Saturday, Setare Ghorbani, a French-Iranian national living in the suburbs of Paris, said that she became ill from worry for her friends inside Iran. She read out one of her friends’ last messages before losing contact: “I saw two government agents and they grabbed people, they fought so much, and I don’t know if they died or not.”
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Report: US Increasingly Regards Iran Protests as Having Potential to Overthrow Regime
United States President Donald J Trump in White House in Washington, DC, USA, on Thursday, December 18, 2025. Photo: Aaron Schwartz via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – The assessment in Washington of the strength and scope of the Iran protests has shifted after Thursday’s turnout, with US officials now inclined to grant the possibility that this could be a game changer, Axios reported on Friday.
“The protests are serious, and we will continue to monitor them,” an unnamed senior US official was quoted as saying in the report.
Iran was largely cut off from the outside world on Friday after the Islamic regime blacked out the internet to curb growing unrest, as videos circulating on social media showed buildings ablaze in anti-government protests raging across the country.
US President Donald Trump warned the Ayatollahs of a strong response if security forces escalate violence against protesters.
“We’re watching it very closely. If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States,” Trump told reporters when asked about the unrest in Iran.
The latest reported death toll is at 51 protesters, including nine children.